Level of Self-Care and Patient Care Against COVID-19 Among Emergency Medical Services Personnel; a Cross-sectional Study

INTRODUCTION: Provision of pre-hospital care by emergency medical services (EMS) requires paying attention to self-care and patient care against possible infections. The present study was conducted with the aim of determining the level of self-care and patient care against COVID-19. METHODS: The present correlational, descriptive, analytical study was carried out on 301 EMS personnel in Iran. Data were collected using a demographic information form and questionnaires made by the researcher on the level of self-care and patient care against COVID-19. RESULTS: The results showed that more than half of the participants (55%) were aged 27 to 34 years. The majority of the participants had an experience of participating in self-care (88.7%) and patient care (83.7%) training courses against COVID-19. The overall score of self-care was 55.96 ± 6.97 out of 72 and that of patient care was 26.86± 3.39 out of 32, both of which revealed a favorable level. However, in some questions, the mean score was lower than the optimal level. The lowest mean score among items related to self-care against COVID-19 was allocated to wearing protective clothing (1.77±1.19). Among items related to patient care against COVID-19, the lowest mean score was related to training the patient about hand hygine after touching contaminated equipment (2.83±1.08 out of 4). There was a positive (r=0.491) and significant correlation between self-care and patient care against COVID-19 (p=0.001) based on our findings. CONCLUSION: Although the general level of self-care and patient care against COVID-19 was favorable, due to the undesired level of some domains, it seems necessary to implement corrective planning through periodical training and monitoring the performance of the personnel.